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Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Hotel Riviera del Pacífico

One afternoon we visited the Centro Social, Civico, y Cultural in Ensenada. Built in the 30s, it was a luxury hotel and casino, the Hotel Riviera del Pacifico. It was during the time of prohibition in the United States, so it drew the rich and famous from north of the border. It has an interesting and varied history, operating at different times as a military base, hotel, and now as a museum and events center. An employee came upon us wandering through the building and gave us our own personal tour, which made our time there much more interesting.

Once a grand entrance to the hotel, this is now the museum lobby. For a few dollars, we enjoyed our tour of the museum, which is really nicely done. It showcases the native peoples of the Baja peninsula, their way of life, food, flora and fauna, and the coming of the Spanish. The building itself is also fascinating, and I imagine if the walls could speak they'd have some stories to tell!

The entrance to what is now the museum.

Some cutie kids.

I love all the Spanish tile.

This was the ballroom. Our tour guide, like most people we've run into in Mexico, loved kids and didn't mind ours running and playing.

A picture of the hotel long ago. It's not quite this close to the water anymore.

This is an original chandelier in a huge, round room. The ceiling was quite beautiful.

Much of bar room is also original. It's said that the margarita was invented here. I wonder how many other places claim the same thing.

Peregrine complained of being bored while we were in the room with the huge chandelier. I told him this was the kind of place where movies were filmed, that at the last moment someone would surely cut the chain and send the whole thing crashing down on the villain's head. Bored no more, he made up a movie plot in his head and has big plans to film it here when he grows up. (When he and Raphael aren't racing together in the Baja 1000.) Here you can see a bit of the rehearsal going on: Poppy has just been wounded by a bullet and Raphael is in a shootout with the villain. Erik and I often lament that our poor kids have no imagination.

I liked the bells.

And I have an affinity for St. Francis.

More tile... sigh.

The light was so pretty as we were leaving.

And of course we had to pull over on the way home so Erik could take a sunset picture!